As you may have read or heard, Bayonne is completing a city-wide tax re-evaluation. 

If so, these can be great places for single-family rentals.But here is an article that may help you evaluate potential markets.https://www.turbotenant.com/blog/the-best-places-to-buy-rental-investment-property-in-2020/

Joining a team can be a great jump start since you'll pitch in on deals in progress and have chances to do open houses, work with buyers they've found, etc.  

Credit history for a two-year period prior to this application will be evaluated.

Can someone tell their process for evaluating a property?

Beach is a whole different thing, and ultimately my post (see title) was looking for direction on the proper place to post my questions or even find a specific person to help me evaluate the opportunity (maybe a pro or co-host opportunity) because I learned in two minutes on this forum since I joined that there is more to it than the “profit” from one year of STR.

How often will you receive progress reports?

I enjoyed hearing about your progression.  

We let the lender know to continue to progress, as we had lead inspections and phase I reports lined up.

I am evaluating a few options to improve this situation, one is "status quo" i.e wait another year and then decide since the next rent increase will improve the situation a little, two is to add a detached ADU which I have researched to confirm both feasibility and strong economics, and three is to see about selling the property as a development lot for multifamily, then using the proceeds on another investment.